


On Nesting

by snack_size



Series: Adaptations [1]
Category: Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Character Death, Clint Lives in the Air Ducts, Community: avengerkink, Friendship, Gen, M/M, clint's nesting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-02
Updated: 2012-06-03
Packaged: 2017-11-06 16:41:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snack_size/pseuds/snack_size
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> Despite what everyone thought, it had not started as something intentionally related to the codename he’d been given. Rather, it was a function of how he was often stationed in high places for long periods of time - you had to keep hydrated, and well nourished, and have proper clothing for changes in weather. After a certain period, when he had been assigned several long stakeouts in a row, he realized there was no point in climbing down to sleep - especially when he was likely to be roused and expected to be in position if his mark was moving. So he started bringing a sleeping bag with him, and then books and a gameboy and a mini DVD player for when he wasn’t on watch. He knew, before the first agent decided he was going to be clever, that people would consider it a nest.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Self-awareness was more than half the battle. That, and the ability to shoot unsuspecting agents in the ass with an arrow when they began to annoy him.</i>
</p><p>Clint moves into Avengers Tower, and promptly takes up residence in the air ducts, including the one above Bruce's lab. It soon becomes clear that this isn't just a cracky, quirky behavior.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please note - there are spoilers for the movie and mentions of character death.

Despite what everyone thought, it had not started as something intentionally related to the codename he’d been given. Rather, it was a function of how he was often stationed in high places for long periods of time - you had to keep hydrated, and well nourished, and have proper clothing for changes in weather. After a certain period, when he had been assigned several long stakeouts in a row, he realized there was no point in climbing down to sleep - especially when he was likely to be roused and expected to be in position if his mark was moving. So he started bringing a sleeping bag with him, and then books and a gameboy and a mini DVD player for when he wasn’t on watch. He knew, before the first agent decided he was going to be clever, that people would consider it a nest.

Self-awareness was more than half the battle. That, and the ability to shoot unsuspecting agents in the ass with an arrow when they began to annoy him.

The ducts started as a function of necessity for one corporate espionage job - it was the easiest way to move around the factory and its headquarters without getting noticed, and even though he was playing the part of mild mannered mail room clerk by day, there was still plenty that happened at night, so he just climbed into the walls and kept his eye on everything. 

It was around then that Coulson started to get a little concerned. 

“I grew up in a circus, Phil, really...you think this is weird?” Clint said, putting his feet up on Coulson’s desk and grinning at him. 

“You’re getting dirt on my paperwork,” Coulson replied, making a slight grimace.

Coulson was probably still concerned, but he stopped mentioning it after the time that the New York offices got compromised and Clint was the only one who didn’t get tied-up since he had been hiding in the duct system. “See,” Clint said. “I have my uses.” 

And, OK, maybe he had become a little bit...neurotic, or obsessive about it, since the New York incident - images of Natasha, Coulson, and Fury with guns to their head were seared into his memory, even if at the time the three of them were able to do the whole hero-snarks-the-villain-thing because they knew that he was somewhere in air ducts. 

So when Tony Stark told him to come over and see Avengers Tower, as he was now calling it, and showed Clint the apartment he had set up for him _to use whenever you’re not off killing people, or whatever_ Clint had just nodded. Tony had grown, for a moment, actually awkward looking. “I mean, Bruce and Steve live here now...and Thor, for when he's around...and Natasha has one, too...”

“Right,” Clint said, smiled, and pat him on the back. He still wasn’t sure what to think about Stark - especially since, for a self-dubbed billionaire genius playboy philanthropist, he seemed overly interested in taking in a bunch of people who were each emotionally crippled in their own ways.

He cornered Natasha two days later at the Helicarrier canteen, stuck in a harbor outside of New York as repairs were still being completed. “What do you think about Stark’s offer?” he asked, poking the various desserts with his fork to determine which was the wiggliest and therefore, least appetizing. 

She shrugged. “How often does a billionaire offer you your own apartment?” she asked, in her typical disaffected tone, and then leaned in when she was certain no one else was listening to them. “Did you see the size of the bathroom? The rain forest shower?”

“I don’t think that was included in my portion of the tour,” Clint said. Natasha arched an eyebrow.

“Not that I’m giving up my apartment,” she said. “But, barracks?” 

So, if one of his major reasons for stalking the SHIELD air ducts was moving - and the other, somewhere in the back of his head reminded him, wasn’t there anymore - then it made sense to move. And, he rationalized further, that Stark/AvengersTower was a huge improvement over SHIELD - less paperwork, fewer people bitching about the quality of the coffee, a television with a much larger screen. 

Clint gathered up his shit, stuffed it into his duct-taped duffle bag, and got a cab to take him across town. He put the duffle bag down in the apartment - after confirming that the bathtub was, indeed, big enough for an orgy and the shower bore resemblance to the sort of showers he had seen on the Travel Channel - and hoisted himself into the ducts. Another reason to move materialized when he realized that the ducts in the tower were wider, in much better repair, and didn’t appear to have any other active residents - as much as he was going to miss Skippy, Dolores, and their multitudes of offspring and great-offspring, he had started to worry that they were going to start going Secret Rats of NIMH on him at some point.

He found a reasonable space and unloaded the items he usually took into his nest. There was also a huge improvement in smell and air circulation - Natasha would be happy, she could stop giving him lectures about mesothelioma. 

* * * * *

“Barton,” Tony said, when he appeared that evening for the group dinner. “Didn’t expect to see you around here.” Clint shrugged.

“What’s on?” he asked, sitting in a chair next to Natasha, who appeared to be furiously texting someone - from the black dress and heels she was wearing, either a mark or a date. 

“Oh, hello, Clint,” Steve said, turning from the stove. “I’m making macaroni and cheese. Thor has never had it.”

“I really believe that I have, Captain,” Thor said. “Lady Jane’s handmaiden, Darcy, made a noodle dish from a box that she described as macaroni with cheese-”

“Ugh,” Clint said, “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. Too many flashbacks.”

“Barton basically lived off that, Ramen, and Pop-Tarts until SHIELD finally strapped him down for some blood-tests and couldn’t figure out why he was alive,” Natasha said, still typing.

“I very much enjoy the Pop-Tarts,” Thor said. “I was also fed these by Darcy.” 

“You should get her number,” Natasha said, to Clint. 

Steve pulled the pot off of the stove and set it in the middle of the table and smiled at all of them - it made Clint, for a moment, have an elaborate fantasy of Steve Rogers, house-husband. He would have been one of the few who didn’t need Mother’s Little Helpers, for sure.

“Looks great, Steve, thanks,” Tony said.

“Where’s Bruce?” Clint asked. He was pretty sure Bruce lived there, even though he hadn’t seen him since he had moved in.

“Lab, probably,” Tony shrugged. “He’s been working on something for the past two days said he’s _this close_...I told Pepper to get him a pizza. I think. Yesterday.” 

“Oh, OK,” Clint said, and dug into the homemade macaroni and cheese. He didn’t even see Natasha heaping his plate full of the steamed broccoli until he went to deposit his mound of cheesy goodness in the center. She shrugged, not making eye contact with him - but he could hear what she wanted to say, _someone needs to look after you, Barton._

He meant to sleep in the bed, that night, but instead he got the rolled sleeping bag of out of his duffle and carried it into the air ducts with him.


	2. Chapter 2

None of them kept normal sleep cycles. He tried, because people told - or had told him, gently - that it was important. Clint just wasn’t sure how, exactly, after a week and a half spent on top of a building in Dubai - with only two to three hours of sleep allowed at a time - he was supposed to defeat jet lag and get back on a regular rhythm while surrounded by teammates who moved around at all hours.

He needed a better place to sleep, he decided, a napping place - as opposed to a laughing place, which he was fairly certain he was incapable of having, at this point. He spent an afternoon trying to find somewhere that didn’t overlook either personal quarters, Stark Industries Offices, Tony’s own lab, or communal spaces. When he stumbled on the perfect place, he had to laugh - he had actually forgot Banner had his own lab, because he barely saw the man.

It was, if possible, messier than Stark’s - but it was also a lot quieter. Rather than metal music, Dr. Banner seemed to prefer either ambient nature sounds or classical music, and it was always kept at a low volume. He also seemed to be less interested in loud scientific pursuits, preferring to work equations on an enormous marker board or to tinker with vials of chemicals or other small science-like ephemera. The place also didn’t reek of motor oil and take out food in various stages of decay.

The discovery of the space made Clint glad he hadn’t given up and that he had kept dragging the sleeping bag and pillow he had tied to his ankle behind him as he continued his search. He found a large space in the duct and set himself up. He had needed to sleep about six or seven hours ago. 

He knew that he had found his napping place when he awoke, and it was eight hours later. He couldn’t remember - well, he could, but he chose not to, because it was still too raw - the last time he had slept for a full eight hours. 

He left the sleeping bag and pillow there, and glanced through one of the vents as he retreated. Banner was still seated at his lab stool, but his head was in his hands and it looked like he was drooling on the paper he was working on. A half drank cup of tea was at his side, and, more concerning, it was apparent to Clint how thin he was from the position that he was in. Perversely, he felt a sense of relief - _at least here, there are people who take care of themselves less than I do._

* * * * *

Clint felt bad about continually retreating to above Banner’s lab to sleep because he imagined that the good doctor was probably a little tetchy about people watching him - he had spent the past significant chunk of his life trying to run from people watching him, and especially from SHIELD watching him. On the other hand - it was the only place he could go the fuck to sleep during the day, when he needed it. At night, his larger nest was more than sufficient - but it was too close to Tony’s own lab and the gym to offer the necessary serene atmosphere during the day. 

He justified it, initially, by telling himself that what Banner didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him. And it wasn’t like he was spying on him, per se. He wanted peace and quiet, just like Banner did. They had a shared mission, a shared ethos.

Then, one morning, a piece of paper was taped in clear view of his vantage point from the ducts. _I don’t mind the company_ it said, the handwriting quite messy but still decipherable. 

He appreciated the gesture - an acknowledgement of his fucked up habits without any judgement attached, which was something Banner seemed good at. With good reason, Clint supposed. 

Also, he legitimately liked the guy. It was hard not too - he had the whole nervous, sort of sketchy scientist thing down but on top of that was an incredibly dry sense of humor and the ability to be the only person who got to call Tony Stark out on his shit. 

Clint learned this his second Friday living in the tower, though not sequentially, since there was the Dubai bullshit. Bruce taped another note over the original one. _Tony says Fridays are Mandatory Midgardian/Modernity Immersion Evenings: Movie at 7_

Clint almost headed back to his main space in the ducts to get a piece of paper and issue a reply - _will there be booze? I’m not coming unless there is_ \- when he realized Tony Stark was involved and it was a moot point. He sighed, then, because he hated mandatory anything - Mandatory Counseling Sessions, Mandatory Grief Counseling Sessions, because the first couldn’t fully encompass the later. What if he had a date? Or plans? But he didn’t, and he wouldn’t, because... He sighed. There would be booze.

“Barton!” said Tony, when he arrived fifteen minutes before the movie with a bag of Doritos as an offering, “I guess Natasha got a hold of you. Great!” Clint shrugged and tossed the Doritos on the table - there was already a strange mix of snack foods, from those curry covered are they nuts or are they chips that Banner liked to Poptarts to what had to be Natasha’s three pound bag of Sour Patch Kids and Cracker Jacks.

Clint ended up having to moderate a debate over what was the most essential movie for them to introduce Steve and Thor to, in order to understand the current zeitgeist. “Honestly,” he said, after he chugged his third beer and was finally starting to feel the better for it, “Wouldn’t it make sense to go in historical order? _Star Wars_ came first.” 

“Sensible,” Bruce muttered, and handed Clint another beer. He cocked his eyebrow and put his feet up on the coffee table. 

“Take your shoes off if you’re going to do that,” Tony said.

“Honestly?” Bruce said, louder, “I think there have been far less...clean things on that coffee table than-” Tony rolled his eyes, glared at Steve, and then ordered JARVIS to begin the movie.

They mainlined the whole trilogy that week, and then settled on Indiana Jones - with everyone in agreement that the fourth movie was not to be included under any circumstances. 

It was that week that Clint decided to get the mini-fridge in his main nest because he was tired of having to slide out of the ducts and go to the kitchen when he wanted a soda or something. There was always someone in the kitchen because it was the location of _the_ coffee maker, which seemed to be more complex than most of the technology on the SHIELD bridge. Once, he had caught Natasha stroking it lovingly, and she had given him that _you saw nothing, Barton,_ look that she had perfected many years ago and which had reached its apex in Budapest.

JARVIS had been really helpful in figuring out how to power the mini-fridge, and talked Clint through opening up a panel and making some adjustments so that he could plug the fridge into the main power network for the towers. “Awesome, thanks, JARVIS,” Clint said. “I don’t think I’ve ever done something electrical before.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Barton,” said JARVIS.

“Do you think I’d get WiFi in here?” Clint asked, and grinned at the response.


	3. Chapter 3

After the third message - _Better avoid Stark - Pepper Problems_ Clint realized that he should repay the kindness, because he hadn’t asked for it and because Bruce didn’t seem to have an agenda with it, either. It didn’t take long for him to formulate a plan. He had spent too many hours watching Bruce subsist on tea and snack items he got from an Indian grocery store, and he suspected that his caloric intake was nowhere near what was needed for someone who had a Giant Green Rage Monster (tm Tony Stark 2012) stuck inside them.

“Yo, JARVIS,” he said. “What’s Bruce’s favorite food?”

“Dr. Banner likes curry, from India or Thailand, and is also fond of most pizzas. He is a vegetarian,” the AI responded.

“Cool - also, do you know where there is a toy store where I can get those old fashioned army men with the parachutes?” 

JARVIS took a moment, and then gave him directions. 

A pizza box would be a little difficult, but the little take away boxes the curry and rice came in were perfect for an aerial food assault. Clint ordered a variety of options from the Indian place near the tower and made sure to get some samosas for himself - they were a weakness of his, all food should be wrapped in delicious bread and deep fried, as far as he was concerned.

He waited until Bruce stopped with the science, and grinned when he saw him pull up, of all things, _True Blood_ on his computer. Clint grinned - he appreciated a man with an unabashed love of vampire sex. “Fly, my pretties,” he whispered to the take away containers, and then carefully dropped them so they would land on the floor near Banner.

Engrossed, Banner didn’t notice until the heavier items started to land near him. Clint closed the air duct just as Bruce looked up, and he had this smile on his face that was...Clint stopped himself, because of reasons. He waited for Banner to start eating some of the korma before he dropped the remainder of his haul.

 _Thanks_ read the next note, and then, _(Maybe not mention the TB to anyone?)_. Clint responds with a parachuted Snickers bar, which he knew Banner is fond of. 

* * * * *

“Barton!” Tony said, when he came upon Clint on the roof, “Haven’t seen you in awhile.” He was carrying a bottle of liquor and a book, and Clint had to grin at the idea of Tony Stark sunbathing with a beach read. “You know you’re more than...”

“Yeah, I know,” Clint said, not wanting to get involved in that conversation. He attended all the movie nights, except for the one when he had been in Douala and then had to spend that Friday in the medical bay getting a bullet dug out his calf. Fuck Douala - he had missed Lord of the Rings, and only found out that Saturday morning when he was making some french toast and Thor had clapped him on the back and said, _I know understand why Tony calls you Legolas! But it is inaccurate, as you are a much greater warrior than the maiden elf!_ He appreciated that, and made some french toast for Thor.

“OK, cool,” Tony said. “Hill told me about Cameroon-” _Fuck Hill,_ he thought, “-and so I thought, you know what you could use? Some kind of nerve gas - not saying that you couldn’t hit all the villains crowded around, but it would make things much easier if it was just one, wouldn’t it?” 

Clint considered this, and then nodded. 

“We could even include a timed release function, or a release function you could activate...there are a lot of possibilities, actually...”

“Yeah, that’s...that sounds like it would be good,” Clint said, intrigued that Stark was interested. They hadn’t really interacted much, between Stark being in his lab and Clint being, well, in the air ducts. They ran into each other in the halls, there was an occasional team dinner, the movie nights, and that robot incident in Los Angeles they had to attend to, but they weren’t...well, he supposed they were teammates.

“Great!” Tony said, and he settled himself into one of the loungers on the roof, next to the pool. “You want some vodka?” 

“Natasha’s spoiled me for vodka,” Clint said. “What kind is it?”

“She told me I could only buy this kind from now on,” Tony said, holding up the bottle, and Clint smiled.

“Sure, hand it over,” he said, and took a long sip out of the bottle - just removed from the freezer - before handing i back to Stark.

“I’ll get started on those arrows tomorrow,” Stark said, and Clint nodded as Stark passed the bottle back to him.

* * * * *

Over the next week and a half he began to perfect his food delivery system - and rather than yanking parachutes off of army paratrooper toys he began to construct his own after JARVIS had led him to a stash of clothes that Tony meant to donate to charity but had never got around to doing so. The cloth could handle more weight, like baked goods and tubs of Ben & Jerry’s, which Banner seemed to really appreciate.

The point was, it was a peaceable existence founded on mutual respect. Banner would alert him to when Stark was going to drop by for _science_ and Clint would send him some of the cookies Steve made once Tony left. 

At night, when he felt like he could handle all of them - or some of them - he would venture out and watch television, take an evening jog with Steve, or head out with Natasha when she would grab his upper-arm and make a hissing noise, indicating she needed space. If he didn’t - and often, he didn’t, and it wasn’t that he didn’t like the Avengers, or whatever they were, just, whatever - he would sit with his computer and his Netflix instant account or have JARVIS fill him in on the goings-on in the Tower.

“This afternoon, Captain Rogers attempted to teach Thor how to bake, since he tends to eat the majority of the cookies that the Captain produces,” JARVIS would intone, and Clint would get him to send the video to his laptop, take a Xanax, and slip into quiet amusement before he curled up in the more elaborate bed setting that he had in the larger air duct - he had found a small mattress, the ones that were used on college dorms and then, in the spirit of things, had got one of those hideous foam pronged mattress covers that were surprisingly comfortable. 

The point was, he found himself in something of a rhythm, and he was told at Mandatory Counseling and Mandatory Grief Counseling that this was an important thing - though he thought both counselors might feel differently if he revealed exactly what his routine was. Nina, his Mandatory Counselor - who he preferred, if he had to rank them, but they were both employed by SHIELD and were therefore deplorable in a variety of ways - told him that she thought he was showing signs of improvement. “Really?” he asked. “You can tell that from two half an hour sessions twice a week?” 

“There’s still a lot of work to do,” she demurred.

“Work - improvement, on what, exactly? On me? You think I can change? Or go back? What, we just need some duct tape?” He rolled his eyes at her, grabbed his water bottle, and sucked the whole thing dry. He and Natasha had had a particularly vicious sparring match that morning. He felt better for it.

Apparently asking those questions was a sign of improvement and it was noted on whatever form you had to use for agents who had been compromised and/or exhibited signs of serious mental health issues - which, really? Did that not apply to everyone at SHIELD? Except Hill, it was likely she was an android. But what this meant was that he wasn’t going to get stuck with shit missions in shit places run by shit agents who thought that all he could do for them was pull the trigger and hit the mark, so, whatever, fine. He was improving.


	4. Chapter 4

He was looking through the kitchen for something to turn into lunch when the rhythm was interrupted. “Mr. Barton, I think you might want to go to the lounge,” JARVIS said. “Mr. Stark has requested your presence.” 

Clint winced - because how could that be good? - grabbed a banana and went to the next room over, where Tony was standing with his hands crossed. He cocked his head towards a hole in the wall where Clint’s large duct space was exposed, after someone had pulled away the sheet metal.

Natasha was sitting on the couch, legs pulled up to her chest, and giving Clint one of her rare contrite looks.

“Barton,” Stark said. “You’ve been living in the air duct all this time?” 

Clint pursed his lips, because the answer seemed self-explanatory. He had a fucking mini-fridge in there, what did Stark think he was doing? Building a clubhouse? “Yeah,” he replied.

“In the air duct,” Stark said. “You sleep on that.”

“Yeah,” Clint said. 

Tony’s eyes were the widest Clint had seen, and he turned to look at Natasha, who looked at Clint. “This whole time...I thought you were just...hanging around.” He paused. “The fuck is that?”

“It’s a nest,” Clint said. 

“JARVIS, did you - of course you knew about this? And you didn’t think..?”

“Mr. Barton’s presence would have remained undetected if you hadn’t damaged the duct system in your lab, requiring a systemic sweep-”

“Mute, JARVIS,” Tony replied. “What, are the two of you bros, or something?” 

“We get along,” Clint replied.

“Didn’t you hack into SHIELD’s files?” Natasha asked. “And read about the New York Office incident? Barton rescued us all because he was in the ducts.” 

“Wait, this is a regular thing?” Tony asked.

“Ugh,” Clint said, considering how he wanted to answer this. “For missions, and the Helicarrier...”

“You’ve never lived in the air duct before, Clint,” Natasha said. _Traitor,_ he thought. “Not as your primary living space.” 

“Oh, fuck, is this an intervention?” he asked. 

“I just can’t...I can’t - do you know what it takes, to make me not have-” Tony said, actually flumoxed.

“You know that you fly around and save the world in a metal suit that you originally made in a cave out of scrap metal, right?” Banner asked. He was leaning in the doorway of the lounge, eyebrows raised. Clint, for a moment, felt calm. Banner seemed to have that effect - sometimes. Most of the time.

“You knew?” Stark asked.

“Ugh, not about the...this,” Banner said, glancing at Clint momentarily. “But...Agent Barton took naps in the duct near my lab...pretty regularly.”

“It was the one quiet place in the whole building,” Clint said.

“The bedrooms are sound proofed!” Stark said.

“Honestly,” Clint said, “I don’t see...I mean, no one knew. No harm, no foul.” 

“It’s a little...eccentric,” Banner said. He winced. “But-”

“No buts,” said Stark. “You can’t live in the air duct.”

“Fine,” said Clint. 

Natasha stood, and strode over to him, making eye contact the entire way. She put her hands on his face and pulled in close enough so that their foreheads were touching. “I know how it feels, you know that,” she said. “To be unmade. To mourn a... you know what he would say about this, Clint.” 

He couldn’t help but dart his eyes to the side, as Banner, and then Stark, comprehended what she had said. He had not felt this exposed in a long while. “I’m improving,” he said to her, voice soft.

She glanced in the direction of the air duct nest, and shook her head. 

“I’m sorry, Clint,” Banner said, and he was closer than the doorframe now but Clint didn’t want to look up at him. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Look,” said Stark, and his tone suggested Clint should turn and look at him. “You can crawl around them, OK, if that’s your thing? But you can’t...live in there. It’s got to be a building code violation, not to mention-” 

“I’ll help you get your stuff,” Natasha said, cocking her head towards the hole in the wall. “We’ll take it to your bedroom.” 

Clint sighed. There wasn’t any point in fighting, and it’s not like he could...Stark would be sweeping every air duct in the building from now on. “OK,” he said. Natasha put a hand on his shoulder, and both Banner and Stark stepped aside as he stuffed his things into the duffle bag.

* * * * *

 _We can talk, if you want. Or not talk._ The handwriting was more tentative on this one, and Clint narrowed his eyes for a moment. He had brought a Thai Curry and spring rolls as a peace offering, but now he wasn’t quite sure. Banner hadn’t been the one to throw the hissy fit, but he hadn’t exactly helped, either. Not that Clint expected anyone to. 

He sighed, and then crawled further down the shaft to where he knew there was a grate he could slip out of. 

Banner had turned away from his computer, likely alerted by the sound of the plinking screws as they hit the ground. Clint descended easily, dropping onto an empty table and then sitting down on it to face the doctor. 

“It’s not that I know what I’m supposed to say,” Bruce said. 

“That’s fine,” Clint replied, and for a moment, he had to consider the fact that the primary relationship he had developed over the past four months or so was with someone he sort of stalked from an air duct who wrote messages to him and who Clint parachuted food on out of concern and... he had to stop himself, seeing a little bit of Natasha’s point. “I have two Mandatory Counselors who think they know exactly what they’re supposed to say. And who does that, anyway, you graduate from social work school or whatever and decide to go off and rehabilitate covert operatives?” 

“Maybe it’s the other way around.”

“What do you mean?” Clint asked.

“Maybe they were SHIELD agents and then someone said, you know what we could use? Social workers - military puts people through law and medical school all of the time,” Bruce said. He reached into his drawer and handed Clint a bag of Red Vines that Clint had sent him a few days ago. Clint took a strand. 

“That really helps,” he said. “It explains...a lot.” 

“Tony hates these,” Bruce said, rolling one of the licorice strips up and eating it. “Says they taste like plastic. I told him that was the point.” 

“Natasha hates them too,” Clint said. He twitched his lip. “He did too.” 

Bruce nodded, and nibbled on another strip. He didn’t say anything, just looked at Clint, and the other man was relaxed and open - Clint sensed that he would be legitimately content to just sit here and eat Red Vines with him. “I didn’t know how to explain, after,” Clint said. “Six years.” 

Bruce scooted forward on his stool and put a hand on Clint’s knee. Their eyes met, and Bruce smiled softly, then handed Clint another licorice strip. 

“I don’t like sleeping alone,” he said.

“I know,” Bruce said, and there was legitimate empathy there. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as sort of a crack!fic, since I find the whole fanon idea of Clint's nests and hideouts fairly hilarious. But then, all of the sudden, it got a huge case of the feels and some angst, too. 
> 
> It was inspired by these two prompts on the Avengers kinkmeme:  
>  _In which Tony realizes Clint's been living in his ceiling:  
>  For like months. And he had no idea. Because sure, Clint seemed to hang around a lot, but Tony figured he was just being a nosy SHIELD agent. And there are times where Tony goes days without seeing the archer, because of missions and work and Stark Tower is pretty huge, y'know._
> 
>   _Then Tony finds an air duct with a bed and clothes and a computer and mini-fridge. What. The. Fuck._
> 
>   _Clint/Tony is optional, but totally welcome._
> 
>   _Bonus if Jarvis knew and he and Clint are bros._
> 
>  AND 
> 
>   _Bruce has the tendency to get so absorbed in his work that he skips meals/forgets to eat._
> 
>   _Clint pretty much sees all and knows everything that goes around Stark tower. The lab is one of the few places he can take a rest these days so he recently made it a habit of climbing to the ceiling of the lab for a quick nap.  
>  He notices Bruce isn't eating like he should. He wants to thank Bruce for letting him stay in the lab in peace (Bruce is used to being under surveillance so Clints constant presence doesn't bother him) and starts taking food with him for Bruce to eat in thanks._
> 
>   _Can be gen or more, I just really want more of this pairing._


End file.
